Troubleshooters 03 Over The Edge

by Suzanne Brockmann

  The woman was a list maker. As long as he’d known her, she’d worked off of an entire legal pad of lists. Things that had to get done immediately. Things to do later. Things to start thinking about doing.

  She made lists reminding her of the names of the people she was working with on various projects, lists of their spouses and children and birthdays. Lists of facts, lists of dates, lists of important information.

  He simply hadn’t known that that important information had probably included what year it was and what city she was working and living in and the fact that her husband, Avi, had died ten years ago.

  He wondered if his name was on her current list. “Desmond Nyland, personal assistant since 1986. His wife, Rachel—my former close friend—deceased two years. Adopted daughter, Sara, in first year at Harvard.”

  For years Helga Rosen Shuler had traveled all over the world as an envoy—a representative of Israel. She was sharply intelligent, marvelously eloquent, elegantly dignified, and warmly caring—one class act all the way. She was also a Holocaust survivor, a Danish Jew who never let an opportunity slide to remind the world of that fact.

  She’d just turned sixty-eight. That was hardly old at all. She was still energetic, vibrant.

  Maybe it wasn’t Alzheimer’s—her forgetting Rachel had been gone these past two years, her talking aloud to her Poppi and Marte and whatnot. Maybe she was simply overtired, overworked.

  And maybe the man in the moon was coming over for dinner tonight.

  So okay. He’d keep an eye on her for a while.

  But if it happened again, Des was going to have to tell her that if she didn’t resign voluntarily, he would need to inform both her bosses and his that she was no longer fit to do her job.

  And wouldn’t that be fun?

  He knocked on the door to her office.

  “Come in.”

  Helga was sitting behind her desk, looking up at him expectantly, with her usual friendly smile lighting her still pretty face as he came inside.

  Des looked into her eyes. Did she even know who he was? He closed the door behind him, hating the fact that he would wonder that now, every time he saw her. “I found Marte Gunvald.”

  “Oh, my God, Des, you did? That quickly?”

  Thank God. She knew who he was. “Luck played into it. And the news isn’t all that good.”

  She was ready for it, already at peace with the idea. “She’s dead.”

  He nodded. “Since 1980. Cancer.” He handed her the file and sat down across from her desk, watching as she scanned it.

  “So young,” she murmured. “Her son was only what . . . ? Eighteen, poor thing, at the time. Stanley. Marte had a son named Stanley. It says he’s from Chicago. Did she live in Chicago, too? Were there any other children?”

  “I’ll have more info for you in a few hours,” Des told her. “Like I said, it was luck the information in this file was available. And I’m afraid your good luck is very bad luck for one hundred and twenty people on World Airlines flight 232 out of Athens. The reason this info came up so quickly is that two hours ago, terrorists hijacked that flight, forcing it to land in Kazbekistan. They’re demanding the freedom of two prisoners—one in an American jail, and one in an Israeli jail—both charged with terrorism.”

  Des leaned forward to tap the file. “Marte’s son—Senior Chief Stanley Wolchonok—is one of a team of U.S. Navy SEALs being called in to deal with the terrorist situation. He doesn’t even know it yet. His CO probably just got the order himself.”

  And yet she and Des knew. There were questions in Helga’s eyes, questions she knew better than to put into words. Questions he couldn’t answer about his connection to Mossad, Israel’s intelligence organization, questions about Mossad itself.

  Instead she asked, “Who’s going?”

  Israel didn’t negotiate. The terrorists could kill all of the people on that plane, one by one, and Israel still wouldn’t let that prisoner go free.

  But they would play the game. They’d send a representative to Kazbekistan to help buy the Americans the time they needed to get their team of SEALs in place and take down the plane.

  Des shook his head. “Helga, believe me, you don’t want to go to Kazbekistan.” The godforsaken country was nicknamed the Pit. It was listed as the number-one nastiest place on the planet in the newly revised edition of The World’s Most Dangerous Places.

  “Yes, I do. Someone has to go, and I want it to be me.” She had on her envoy face, used her envoy voice. “Do whatever you have to do to get me there.”

  Something big was up.

  First Jazz Jacquette got a phone call.

  Big and black, SEAL Team Sixteen’s executive officer’s default expression wasn’t quite as dark a glower as Senior Chief Wolchonok’s. His was more an expression of intensity, of ultimate concentration.

  A taciturn, somewhat aloof man, Jazz seemed as if he were always on the verge of figuring out the cure for cancer or developing a theory that would enable him to defy gravity.

  Teri had been a little nervous as she boarded the transport plane, when she’d found out that Jazz, not Tom Paoletti, was in command of this training op that she’d been sent along to participate in. But then she’d seen the senior chief. He’d met her gaze, sent her both a smile and a nod, and she’d relaxed.

  Stan was here. She was safe.

  It was a strange feeling—this sense of safety—and she refused to overanalyze it, to accidentally exorcise it by giving it too much thought.

  As she watched, Jazz, still on the phone, called Stan over. He said something to Stan, and whatever he said, it made Stan instantly more alert.

  Which was saying something. Stan Wolchonok usually stood like a fighter—on the balls of his feet and ready for anything. But as Teri watched, he went to DEFCON 1, to launch mode. There was really no other way to describe it.

  He and Jazz had a conversation, with Jazz still holding the phone to his ear. And then, when Jazz gave his full attention back to the phone, Stan turned.

  And looked at her. It was a little shocking, all that energy aimed directly at her.

  Oh, fuck.

  She usually wasn’t very good at reading lips, but Stan’s exclamation was impossible to miss.

  But then he turned away and began talking to Sam Starrett, who had joined him and Jazz. Starrett, normally the king of laid-back cool, was all sharp movements and terse business, too.

  “What’s going on?”

  Teri wasn’t the only one who’d noticed something big was afoot. Ensign Mike Muldoon was sitting behind her and he leaned forward, concern in his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  PO2 Mark Jenkins came down the aisle toward them. “A plane with Americans on board’s been hijacked,” he told them. “We’re being rerouted to Kazbekistan.”

  Teri looked back at Stan, who was deep in conversation with both Starrett and Jazz. This mission had gone from make-believe to real life in the blink of an eye.

  They were going to Kazbekistan—where U.S. Navy helo pilots were ordered to wear their flack jackets if they so much as set one foot outside of their garrison hotel.

  Oh, fuck was putting it mildly.

  FBI counterterrorist team agent Alyssa Locke came out of the elevator and into the lobby of her apartment building as Jules’s car pulled up out front.

  She ran out to meet him, opening the door to put her carry-on luggage into the backseat.

  “Go,” she said as she climbed into the front, and he pulled away from the curb before she even shut the door.

  The flight to Kazbekistan was leaving in forty-five minutes. No way was it going to be delayed because of them.

  Despite the fact that the call had come in less than an hour ago, despite the fact that Jules had been out of the office at the time, and despite the fact that they’d both been running nonstop ever since, they were not going to be late.

  “I can’t believe this,” Jules said, driving fast, with both hands on the wheel. “Ca
n you believe this?”

  “No,” Alyssa said.

  FBI negotiator Max Bhagat had asked for both of them by name, requesting that they join a small group of FBI agents accompanying him to Kazbekistan to observe the negotiation and the actual takedown of the hijacked World Airlines flight.

  Requesting. Sure. Bhagat’s requests packed more power than a four-star’s orders.

  “Do you think he asked for us because he wants to sleep with you? And if so, are you going to do him?” Jules glanced at her, mischief lighting his eyes and too-pretty face, laughing at the dark look she shot him. “Aw, come on, I’d do him to boost your career. Of course, he is extremely hot.”

  “Please don’t tell him that when we see him.” Alyssa laughed at the thought of Jules Cassidy going up to the extremely straight Max Bhagat and . . . “He’s so obviously not—” She stopped herself. Because not all gay men were as blatantly out as her partner. And there was a certain tidiness to Bhagat. A well-manicured polish to his dark good looks. She looked at Jules. “I know it’s none of my business, but . . . is he?”

  “A member of the Barbra Streisand Fan Club?” Jules asked. “Definitely not. Limited eye contact last time we met. But a boy can dream, can’t he?” He fluttered his eyelashes at her.

  “Dream away,” Alyssa told him. “After we get on the plane, okay?”

  “ETA—airport—thirteen minutes,” Jules told her.

  “Good.”

  His voice turned serious. “Why do you think we’ve been asked to observe?”

  Alyssa shook her head. She didn’t know. “I hope it’s because Bhagat’s recognized that we’re good at what we do.”

  Jules nodded. “That would be nice. But . . . what do you know about this situation?”

  “Just what I told you on the phone.”

  World Airlines Flight 232 had taken off from Athens shortly before 8:00 a.m., local time. An hour into the trip an unidentified gunman had entered the cockpit, ordered the pilot to take him to Kazbekistan, ordered him to land at the airport in Kazabek, where four additional unidentified gunmen had entered the plane. At which time they’d sealed the plane, started making demands, and identified themselves.

  “Five terrorists, claiming to be from a K-stani group called something that translates roughly to the People’s Party, are aboard a 747 with one hundred twenty passengers,” Alyssa summed it up, “an as yet unknown percentage of which are American citizens. They’re demanding the release of two prisoners who are awaiting trial, charged with terrorism—one being held in a U.S. federal prison, the other in a prison in Israel.”

  “Osman Razeen,” Jules said.

  She looked at him. “What?”

  “The terrorist being held in the U.S. is Osman Razeen,” Jules said.

  Razeen was a GIK terrorist leader that Jules and Alyssa had helped apprehend less than six months ago.

  “How do you know that?” Alyssa asked.

  “The boss called on my cell phone a few minutes before I got to your place. He also said . . .” He glanced at her.

  Uh-oh. “What?”

  “Two things. Senator Andrew Crawford’s daughter is on that flight.”

  Oh, God. “Do the terrorists know it?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What else?” she asked him.

  He hesitated again. “You’re not going to like this.”

  “I didn’t like the news about Crawford’s daughter.”

  “This you’re really not going to like.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Okay.” Jules glanced warily at her again.

  How could a trained FBI agent who went up against crazed terrorists regularly in the line of duty be so afraid of her? What awful bomb was he going to drop?

  He took a deep breath. “The K-stani government asked the U.S. for assistance in handling this crisis, and a team of Navy SEALs are already on their way to Kazabek.”

  Navy SEALs.

  “Team Sixteen,” Alyssa said with dread. It had to be. Just her luck.

  “There’s more. Lt. Sam Starrett’s in charge of the actual takedown of the plane. He and his squad are who we’re going to be observing.”

  “Shit!” Roger Starrett—nicknamed Sam for reasons that were too complicated to remember—was the last man on earth she ever wanted to see again.

  Jules glanced at her. “Is there a chance that’s why we’re along for this ride? Because Starrett asked for you to be there?”

  Oh, dear God. “No! He’s got no authority over Max Bhagat. I mean, he can’t . . . he couldn’t . . . Besides, he wouldn’t.”

  She and Starrett had made a deal. They’d work together when they absolutely had to, but nothing else. The night they’d spent together nearly six months ago was forgotten. Erased. Deleted from their memories.

  Except it wasn’t. Not really.

  In fact, it tended to pop into the forefront of Alyssa’s mind at the most inopportune moments.

  But that was to be expected, she’d told herself. After all, she was a red-blooded woman, and face it, the sex had been off the scale.

  It was the man she’d had the sex with that she couldn’t stand.

  “You know, I know you slept with him,” Jules said.

  She turned to look at him, covered her shock with a laugh. “Get real.”

  “It was the night I went down to North Carolina,” he said. “Or was it Virginia? I forget. But it was the night I was out of town and your sister Tyra had her baby.”

  She laughed again. “Jules. You don’t really think—”

  “It’s okay, sweetie.” His voice was gentle. “You don’t have to say anything. That way you can pretend that you’re still denying it without really lying to me. I just wanted you to know that, well . . . I know. I figured it out. Didn’t even need my FBI decoder ring to do it.”

  Jules glanced at her again as he took the exit for the airport. But it wasn’t because he expected her to say anything. On the contrary. “So if you ever want to talk about it . . .”

  She was holding her breath, she realized, and she let it out in a rush.

  “I got drunk,” she confessed. “It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I mean, God help me—Roger Starrett.”

  Jules shrugged. “He’s pretty cute. That cowboy attitude and the western drawl . . . Hard to resist.”

  “I would love to watch him hear you say that.”

  “Yeah, his homophobic tendencies are slightly less cute,” Jules agreed with a smile.

  “I don’t want to see him again,” Alyssa admitted. “Ever.”

  “It shouldn’t be too bad if we keep our distance,” Jules told her. “He’s going to be pretty busy getting his team ready to go into the plane. Just keep it cool. Don’t let him get to you.”

  Alyssa nodded. “Yeah.” Cool. She was good at cool.

  She’d be fine. As long as Starrett didn’t touch her. Or talk to her. Or look at her.

  If he came too close, she just might go up in flames.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Five

  “So.” Stan sat down next to Teri, fitting himself carefully into the less than spacious airline seat. “Two more hours, and we’ll be in Kazbekistan. Did you know that it’s called the Pit?”

  She’d put down the novel she’d been reading and turned slightly in her seat to face him, all big brown eyes framed by short dark hair, small nose, delicately shaped lips, slightly pointed chin.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  The question caught him by surprise. Of course he was—he was always all right. But on the other hand . . .

  “I know how I get when my expectations aren’t met,” she told him. “I mean, you deal with it, sure, but . . . You were expecting something easy. The Azores. And you got K-stan. And a lot more work and worry. Something tells me this is the last time you’re going to be sitting down all week.”

  He smiled at that. “I think you’r
e probably right.”

  She smiled back at him. Christ, she was pretty. She twisted in her seat, trying to get more comfortable, and Stan looked down at his boots rather than at the way her body filled her shirt.

  “I’m sorry this had to happen,” she said.

  “Me, too. But not because I mind the hard work.” It was the fact that they were going to the Pit that pissed him off—no, it was the fact that he’d unwittingly dragged Teri Howe along with them that really rankled. “Kazbekistan’s a dangerous place.”